Comparison of the Pipe Flow Results Obtained from ANSYS with The Experimental Results

The head loss due to friction in cooling tubes in the condenser of a steam turbine is the most important issue while designing the surface condenser of Steam Turbine for Thermal Power Stations. The inside pressure drop due to this is important as it takes considerable amount of pumping power to circulate large quantity of cooling water through the cooling tubes of a condenser. In this paper an attempt has been made to compare FLOTRAN results with experimental results obtained by Moody for friction factors for different roughness. For flow analysis inside the condenser tube, a circular pipe of inside diameter of 0.0303276 meter (same as that being used in a condenser) has been considered for determination of friction factor at different Reynolds numbers. The pipe length is 10 meters, which is sufficient for the given range of flow to get fully developed. Reynolds Numbers considered for laminar flow are from 700 to 2300 and from 4x103 to 1x108 for turbulent flows. Three relative roughness values considered are 0.0 (i.e. smooth pipe), 0.00005and 0.0004 for which data is available in Moody’s graph. Three relative roughness values of 0.0, 0.000986 and 0.001984 are also considered and compared with the results given by Nikuradse. The FLOTRAN values for laminar and turbulent flow with relative roughness 0.0 are closely matching with the experimental results. Results for pipe with rough surfaces are also found to be in good agreement with experimental values.